That Love is superior to friendship is apparent from the one
consideration that it includes _all_ the features of friendship, and
adds to them a thousand ecstasies of which friendship never dreams. The
lover, no less than the friend, gratifies his social instinct, his
desire for companionship, his need of confessing his own and sharing
another’s hopes and fears, his craving for stimulating conversation, his
sympathetic disposition to give and receive aid in the trials of life.
But if modern friendship ever had any moments to compare with the
romantic episodes, the tragic agonies and wild delights of love, would
it be conceivable that our realistic novelists and poets could neglect
it altogether and devote all their attention to Love?
The other personal affections fare no better in comparison with Love.
How prosaic even Conjugal Love seems to us as compared with Romantic
Love, of which it is the metamorphosis and continuation, is shown by the
fact that novelists always end their stories with the marriage of the
hero and heroine.
Maternal Love, however, has four traits which occasionally make it
resemble Romantic Love in intensity. They are: (1) a disposition toward
self-sacrifice; (2) jealousy; (3) an exaggerated adoration; and (4)
pride of ownership. But of these the first is the only one that ever
quite rises to the giddy heights of rapturous Love. Jealousy is often
aroused in mothers if their children display excessive fondness or
partiality for their father or a family friend; and they know well in
such a case how to make the latter understand that his presence is an
impertinence. But this momentary ebullition of feeling is but a storm in
a tea-kettle compared to the ferocity of a jealous lover seeking to
devour his rival. Nor does a mother’s excessive worship of the
self-evident beauty and accomplishments of her offspring ever quite
equal the hyperbolic illusion and folly of a lover.
Again, Romantic Love is a monopolist who never shares his treasures of
affection with another, whereas a mother, if she has more than one
child, is obliged to divide her heart like an apple, so that each may
get a slice. Would you infer from this that the mother has a deeper fund
of affection than the lover, because she can love several at a time?
Impossible. The amount of emotion human nerves can bear is limited. The
more you widen it, the shallower does it become. The general love for
all mankind is the weakest and shallowest of all, the lover’s
concentrated affection for one person the deepest and strongest. See
what a terrible strain on his nerves this deep passion is: how he loses
flesh, grows pale and feverish, and prone to self-destruction. Could a
mother survive if she loved each one of five or ten children with the
depth and intensity of a lover? No, we must take back what we said a few
pages back. Maternal affection is after all a mere phantom compared with
Romantic Love.
And the ace of hearts is yet to be played—in favour of Romantic Love.
The mother’s affection is bestowed on what after all is merely a severed
portion of her own individuality; whereas the two lovers are individuals
utterly unrelated. And herein lies the Miracle of Love: that it can in a
few days, ay, a few minutes, ignite between two young persons who have
perhaps never before seen each other, a passion more intense than that
which in the mother is the growth of months and years.
It follows as a corollary from this that Romantic Love is not only more
intense, more concentrated, more immediate and irresistible than
parental affection, but also more just, more in accordance with the
highest precepts of morality, because more altruistic. For the mother
loves only her own flesh and blood, while the lover adores a stranger;
like Romeo, he may even adore the daughter of an enemy.
Thousands of fathers and mothers, moreover, love their own ugly,
vicious, and stupid children more than the beautiful, well-behaved, and
clever children of their neighbours. Who, on the other hand, ever heard
of a young man loving his ugly sister more than the beautiful and
accomplished daughter of his neighbour?
In consideration of the great importance of the family feelings as a
social cement, the parental injustice in question is pardoned and even
commended. But from the standpoint of progressive culture, under
guidance of the law of Natural Selection, it must be condemned; for it
favours demerit in preference to merit, and retards the advent of the
time when family and national prejudices will be forgotten and replaced
by a loverlike, cosmopolitan admiration of personal excellence wherever
and in whomsoever found.
This matter, though it has a semi-humorous aspect, is of the deepest
philosophic import. If family affection, so important as the first step
in the development of society, were the only form of personal love,
close intermarriage between blood-relations would be unduly encouraged.
Fortunately the all-powerful instinct of Romantic Love comes in as a
corrective of family affection, basing its preferences not on
relationship and resemblance, but on differences and complementary
qualities, thus securing for the human race the advantages of
“cross-fertilisation.” We have already seen that flowers owe their
beauty to the cross-fertilisation brought about through the agency of
bees and butterflies. In the same way the human race owes its supreme
beauty to the cross-fertilisation—the union of complementary
qualities—brought about through the agency of Love. Is it perhaps for
this reason that Love is so much like a butterfly, and that Cupid has
wings?
Instead of being merely a transient malady of youth, as cynics aver, or
only an epicurean episode in our emotional life, Love is thus seen to be
one of the greatest (if not _the_ greatest) moral, æsthetic, and
hygienic forces that control human life. And in face of this fact the
few pages, or lines, commonly devoted to this passion in psychologic
text-books, seem wofully inadequate. No apology is therefore needed for
our attempt to subject Romantic Love to a thorough chemical analysis,
and to discover its ingredients. We shall first enumerate and briefly
characterise these ingredients; then proceed to examine how many of them
are to be found in the love of animals and savages, of the ancient
nations and of our mediæval ancestors; and finally, we shall attempt to
describe these various component parts of the passion, as fully
developed in Modern Love.